The Man Behind the Missions
Junipero Serra’s controversial legacy as founder and father of California’s Catholic mission system.
What is now present-day California once belonged to the Kingdom of Spain during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This vast area, along with Mexico and parts of the American southwest, were under Spanish rule. Spain sought to control Native American tribes within this region so they could establish and maintain absolute imperial power. Spaniards believed that religions of the Native Americans were derived from the work of Satin and needed to be corrected immediately with Catholicism.
In response, the Spanish government sent a ship carrying Franciscan missionaries to the New World to spread and instruct Catholicism to the native tribes, and beat out the Jesuits in doing so. The missionaries’ objective was to build missions, or religious living complexes in which the Indians could reside, work, and be educated.
Junipero Serra, a Franciscan Friar, led the establishment of the first nine missions in Alta (Upper) California, playing a key role in their construction, institution, and administration. He was born as Miguel Jose on November 24, 1713 on the island of Mallorca, Spain to Antonio Serra and Margarita Ferrer, illiterate and members of the labor class. Consequently, Serra grew up in poverty. At age sixteen, he traveled to Palma, the capital of Mallorca. His name was changed to Junipero Serra after joining the Catholic order of San Francisco de Assisi, the patron saint of animals, birds, the environment and Italy.
Shortly after, Serra attended the University of Luliana in Palma, receiving a Doctorate in Philosophy and teaching at the convent of San Francisco in Palma. At age thirty-five or thirty-six (his precise age is debated), Serra joined the group of missionaries ordered to take over Jesuit missionaries in Baja, California (present-day Northern Mexico), where he completed seventeen years of missionary work in Sierra Gorda.
In 1767, Jose de Galvez, a very powerful Spanish military leader, officially expelled the Jesuits from their fifteen missions in Baja California. Serra was appointed the overseer of these former Jesuit properties. At age fifty-six, Junipero Serra began designing lay-outs for six new missions to be constructed in Alta California. The first missions he oversaw the construction of Mission San Diego de Alcala, established on July 16, 1769, the southern-most mission in present-day California.
Serra based mission complex designs off of European monasteries. The designs included living quarters, fields for planting crops such as beans, maize, and wheat, livestock pens for meat and milk, a common kitchen, classrooms and small libraries all centered around a grand Catholic church. The complex contained all the necessities for a community to thrive self-sufficiently.
The mission churches Serra designed were much smaller than grand European Cathedrals but had ornately decorated interiors. Serra constantly searched for religious articles to fill the centers of worship; European items such as translated Bibles, gold sculptures altars, and other forms of decorative art were imported, but the majority of construction materials could be found locally.
Stone quarried from nearby areas formed the foundations of mission building. Adobe bricks comprise the walls with plaster (2–3 parts sand and 1 part lime from lime stone mixed with water) sealed the exterior walls from water and weather. The building roofs consisted of thick bundles of reeds or willow branches bound together by rawhide covered in terracotta tiles (semi circular tiles made by laying molded clay on logs to dry and then placing them in organized layers to protect roofs from leaking). Lastly, Serra first planned dirt floors for the structures; shortly after witnessing the failure of this floor type, he implemented the installation of tile floors made from clay. Serra applied these general designs and techniques to all of the missions he established, which extended from San Diego up to San Francisco.
As the leader of Catholic missionary institution in Alta California, Junipero Serra established six missions based on the blueprints he created, which are as follows: San Diego de Alcala-July 16, 1769, San Carlos Borromeo del Rio Carmelo-June 3, 1770, San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, September 1, 1772, San Juan Capistrano-November 1, 1776, and San Buenaventura- March 31, 1782.
After officially opening each mission, Serra designated an important member of the Franciscan order to set standards for religious education and labor. The Spanish religious leaders were primarily responsible for instructing Native Americans in Spanish, translating religious works from Latin to Spanish, and managing church services and activities.
Native American residents were responsible for all the hard labor tasks, from growing crops to making necessities like candles and soap to all of the construction efforts. The ultimate goal the Spaniards wished to achieve from California missions was the Europeanization of the Native Americans through instruction in Catholicism and the European lifestyle.
Only a year after Serra established San Diego de Alcala, Jose de Galvez stationed troops of Spanish soldiers at the missions around Monterey harbor to defend against potential attacks. Due to extreme discrimination against the Native American neophytes, military guards used violence and abuse in controlling laborers, forcing them to work under slave-like conditions.
When Junipero Serra found out about the atrocities occurring at his religious communities, he was greatly disturbed and outraged. Members of the order of the Franciscans particularly stressed peaceful action in dealing with conflicts, greatly disproving of the mistreatment because it went against Serra’s purpose in establishing his Catholic- Franciscan missions. This disapproval led to several conflicts between the Franciscan friars and the Spanish military, resulting in the death of Father Luis Jalme, the torture and murder of a neophyte rebel, and the excommunication of Fernando Rivera, a commander alongside Galvez of the military forces in California.
This series of devastating events led Junipero Serra to immediately alter governing methods and create new administrative regulations to prevent conflict and optimize production and education. Serra followed a planned out regular inspection tours, managing and resolving many conflicts during his stay at each mission, which included San Francisco de Asis (also known as mission Dolores) and Santa Clara de Asis as well as the missions he founded.
The majority of issues he resolved involved the uprisings of natives and overreactions of the military governors. Serra developed a list of skills Franciscan friars were required to teach the neophytes, which included instruction in written and spoken Spanish, weaving techniques, leather tanning, and the processes involved in wine-making: skills he believed crucial to adaptation of European lifestyle.
Additionally, Serra established a highly structured labor system and daily schedules that allowed all work to be completed efficiently and effectively. Laborers were assigned chores based on their age and sex. Serra placed women in the kitchens making food for all the residents of the complex and indoors making candles, soap, cloth, and other neccessities. Both men and women worked crop fields and took care of livestock.
Young children accompanied their parents and older children labored with their adult counterparts. Men labored in construction and creation of adobe bricks and clay tiles. Buildings were in constant need of repair so workers always had something to do. Schooling was conducted in either in the church or in smaller classrooms. Serra supported the fusion of academic and religious education as the fundamental way to become Europeanized.
Junipero Serra departed on his final inspection tour in 1783 with the understanding that the journey might be his last. He wished to view the missions he had worked so hard to design, establish, and administer once more before his departure from this world to the next. Serra completed his tour of seven missions, passing away shortly after his return to Carmel (his base of administration, located in modern day Monterey, a city just south of San Francisco) on August 28, 1784.
Beatified (A Catholic honor below sainthood that authorizes the title “Blessed”) in 1988 for his dedication to spreading the Catholic faith, Serra considered the father of the controversial California Mission system and is arguable the earliest and most influential Catholic in American History.
